This invention relates to an apparatus for performing electrophoresis. More particularly, it pertains to an automated electrophoresis system employing capillary cartridges which are configured for use with commercially available, microtitre trays of standard size and including a stacked, dual carrousel arrangement, a multi-wavelength beam generator, a gel delivery system and an off-line reconditioner to eliminate cross-contamination of samples, improve system capacity and increase system throughput.
Electrophoresis is a well-known technique for separating macromolecules. In electrophoretic applications, molecules in a sample to be tested are migrated in a medium across which a voltage potential is applied. Oftentimes, the sample is propagated through a gel which acts as a sieving matrix to help retard and separate the individual molecules as they migrate.
One application of gel electrophoresis is in DNA sequencing. Prior to electrophoresis analysis, the DNA sample is prepared using well-known methods. The result is a solution of DNA fragments of all possible lengths corresponding to the same total sequential order, with each fragment terminated with a tag label corresponding to the identity of the given terminal base.
The separation process employs a capillary tube filled with conductive gel. To introduce the sample, one end of the tube is placed into the DNA reaction vial. After a small amount of sample enters the capillary end, both capillary ends are then placed in separate buffer solutions. A voltage potential is then applied across the capillary tube. The voltage drop causes the DNA sample to migrate from one end of the capillary to the other. Differences in the migration rates of the DNA fragments cause the sample to separate into bands of similar-length fragments. As the bands traverse the capillary tube, the bands are typically read at some point along the capillary tube using one of several detection techniques.
The most popular fluorescent dyes for tag labeling the DNA samples have absorption maximum wavelength ranging from 490-580 nm. A basic detection technique consists of a CCD camera with a wide-angle lens, a capillary tube array placed under the camera lens with its planar surface parallel to the CCD imaging chip, and a laser beam illuminating across the capillary array. However, a single laser line provided in the basic detection technique cannot favor all of the tag labels at the same time; therefore, either multiple lasers or optical filters are used to compensate for this shortcoming.
Usually, multiple DNA preparation reactions are performed in a commercially available microtitre tray having many separate low-volume wells, each holding on the order of 200-1000 micro-liters. The microtitre trays come in standard sizes. In the biotech industry, the currently preferred microtitre tray has a rectangular array comprising of 8 rows and 12 columns of wells. The centers of adjacent wells found in a single row are separated by approximately 0.9 cm, although this figure may vary by one or two tenths of a millimeter. The same holds for the spacing between adjacent wells in a single column. The rectangular array of 96 wells has a footprint within an area less than 7.5 cmxc3x9711 cm.
Miniaturization has allowed more wells to be accommodated in a single microtitre tray having the same footprint. New trays having four times the density of wells within the same footprint have already been introduced and are fast becoming the industry standard. Thus, these new trays have 16 rows and 24 columns with an inter-well spacing of approximately 0.45 cm.
It is not uncommon to analyze several thousand DNA samples for a given DNA sequencing project. Needless, to say, it is time consuming to employ a single capillary tube for several thousand runs.
Prior art devices have suggested means for analyzing DNA bands in multiple capillaries simultaneously. Such a device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,498,324 to Yeung et al, whose contents are incorporated by reference in their entirety. This reference teaches a means for detecting the DNA bands as they are separated in multiple capillary tubes which are positioned parallel to another. However, in such an arrangement, each capillary tube is filled with gel and a sample is introduced into each capillary tube.
The arrangement described above takes a considerable amount of time to fill each capillary tube with gel. It also takes considerable effort to introduce a reaction sample into one end of each of the tubes reproducibly and reliably.
It is also not uncommon that one uses the same capillary tube for several consecutive sample runs. This, obviously risks cross-contamination of samples, which is a further disadvantage in certain prior art arrangements.
One object of the invention is to provide a device which allows one to simultaneously introduce samples into a plurality of capillary tubes directly from microtitre trays having a standard size.
Another object of the invention is to provide a stacked, dual carrousel arrangement to eliminate cross-contamination of DNA samples without reducing system capacity.
Another object of the invention is to provide a gel delivery module to uniformly distribute gel through the capillary tubes quickly.
Another object of the invention is to provide an off-line capillary reconditioner to thoroughly clean a capillary cartridge off-line to improve system throughput with a minimal increase in cost.
Another object of the invention is to provide an apparatus that produces a multi-wavelength beam. This multi-wavelength beam apparatus allows simultaneous detection of DNA samples which are tagged with different fluorescent tag labeling dyes.
These objects are achieved by a disposable capillary cartridge which can be cleaned between electrophoresis runs, the cartridge having a plurality of capillary tubes. A first end of each capillary tube is retained in a mounting plate, the first ends collectively forming an array in the mounting plate. The spacing between the first ends corresponds to the spacing between the centers of the wells of a microtitre tray having a standard size. Thus, the first ends of the capillary tubes can simultaneously be dipped into the samples present in the tray""s wells. The cartridge is provided with a second mounting plate in which the second ends of the capillary tubes are retained. In another embodiment, instead of the second mounting plate, the second ends of the capillary tubes are bundled together and received by a liquid delivery chamber, preferably a high pressure T-fitting.
Plate holes may be provided in each mounting plate and the capillary tubes inserted through these plate holes. In such case, the plate holes are sealed airtight so that the side of the mounting plate having the exposed capillary ends can be pressurized. Application of a positive pressure in the vicinity of the capillary openings in this mounting plate allows for the introduction of air and fluids during electrphoretic operations and also can be used to force out gel and other materials from the capillary tubes during reconditioning. The capillary tubes may be protected from damage using a needle comprising a cannula and/or plastic tubes, and the like when they are placed in these plate holes. When metallic cannula or the like are used, they can serve as electrical contacts for current flow during electrophoresis.
In the preferred embodiment, a stacked, dual carrousel arrangement eliminates a cross-contamination problem without reducing the capacity of the system. The system uses a buffer solution with the gel to provide a medium for the migration of DNA from one end of the capillary tubes to the other end during electrophoresis. Since the buffer solution also migrates through the capillary tubes during electrophoresis, one end of the capillary tubes must be immersed in buffer solution to continuously replenish the buffer supply in the capillary tubes. Accordingly, the buffer solution may become contaminated with the DNA sample during electrophoresis. Next, the DNA in the buffer solution could migrate into the capillary tubes during a subsequent execution of electrophoresis if the same buffer solution is used on consecutive executions of electrophoresis. The stacked, dual carrousel arrangement eliminates this contamination problem by providing a buffer tray for each DNA sample tray to avoid reuse of the same buffer tray. Since the stacked, dual carrousel arrangement has an additional carrousel to hold the buffer trays, the arrangement does not have to displace any sample trays to provide room for the additional buffer trays. Thus, the arrangement eliminates the contamination problem without reducing system capacity.
In another aspect of the preferred embodiment of this invention, the detection system employs both a multi-wavelength beam generator and multi-wavelength detector in order to allow DNA sequencing samples tagged with different labeling dyes to be detected simultaneously in the same instrument without switching laser or optical filters.
The multi-wavelength beam generator is provided by an argon ion laser capable of producing multi-wavelength beam with wavelengths at 457 nm, 476 nm, 488 nm, 496 nm, 502 nm, 514 nm. The multi-wavelength beam generator compensates for the different absorption spectra among the different labeling dyes, improves the peak detection signal evenness among DNA fragments and enhances the signal to noise ratio of the detection signal.
In another aspect of the preferred embodiment, a gel delivery module quickly and uniformly delivers gel through the capillary tubes. Since the gel is too viscous to be delivered by a pump, the gel delivery module uses a gel syringe to deliver the gel. The gel delivery module includes a gel carriage to hold a disposable gel cartridge. A stepper motor linear actuator has a movable actuator shaft arranged to move a teflon plunger located at one end of the gel syringe to cause gel material to quickly flow through a high pressure fitting at the other end of the gel syringe. Further, the gel delivery module uses the same components used in electrophoresis to relax the gel in the capillary tubes to achieve uniform gel distribution.
In another embodiment of the gel delivery module, a squeezable gel bag is utilized. In this embodiment, the gel bag is placed inside a high pressure chamber which includes a hollow cylinder with an open top and closed bottom and a cap removably affixed to the top of the cylinder. An outlet assembly including an inside end removably attached to the gel bag and an outside end connected to the T-fitting is affixed to the chamber. The chamber is also connected to a pressure control assembly capable of increasing or reducing the pressure inside the chamber. As the pressure increases inside the chamber, the gel is squeezed out through the outlet assembly and delivered to the T-fitting.
In another aspect of the preferred embodiment, a streamlined, off-line capillary reconditioner thoroughly cleans the capillary tubes off-line to achieve increased system throughput with a minimal increase in system cost. An operator can execute electrophoresis while cleaning a previously used capillary cartridge with the off-line capillary reconditioner. Since a thorough cleaning typically takes approximately twenty minutes, the off-line capillary reconditioner improves system throughput as the system does not have to wait for a thorough cleaning of the capillary cartridge 909 between consecutive executions of electrophoresis.
The off-line capillary reconditioner contains a small number of low-cost items including solvent containers for holding the cleaning fluids, manifolds for selection of the cleaning fluids and a simple controller for managing the cleaning. This streamlined nature of the off-line capillary reconditioner offers the advantage of increasing system throughput with a minimal increase in system cost.